Chief executive of 21st Century Fox and son of Donald Trump ally Rupert Murdoch – has become one of the most prominent voices yet to condemn the US president’s response to neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville.

Rupert Murdoch is known to speak regularly to the US president and 21st Century Fox is the parent company of Fox News, which is a regular cheerleader for Trump. “[W]hat we watched this last week in Charlottesville and the reaction to it by the president of the United States concern all of us as Americans and free people,” Murdoch, 44, writes in the memo.

The top U.S. diplomat and defense official moved again Thursday to clarify the Trump administration’s North Korea policy, making clear that it is focused on diplomatic and economic pressure, and that American military action is currently contemplated only in response to an attack by Pyongyang.

“In close collaboration with our allies, there are strong military consequences if DPRK initiates hostilities,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said, using the initials of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “Very simply, in the event of a missile launch towards the territory of Japan, Guam, the United States, [South] Korea, we would take immediate specific actions to take it down.”

In Kentucky and Maryland, city officials promised to swiftly tear down Confederate monuments after years of debates, drawing cheers from supporters but also galvanizing the white supremacists and fanning fears of more protests and more violence.

To the white supremacists who gathered from across the country, the havoc in the Virginia college town and the international attention it earned them marked a win.

Thousands of protesters and heavy security were ready to greet President Donald Trump as he headed for his home in the city on Monday for the first time since his inauguration.

Trump, under pressure after initially condemning what he called an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides,” on Monday declared that “racism is evil” and described members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as “criminals and thugs.”

The year is 2017, and as the president of the United States vehemently defends monuments to the Confederacy, some descendants of Confederate leaders are calling for them to be taken down.

While two of Jackson’s descendants called unequivocally for the removal of Confederate statues in Richmond, Va., three descendants of Lee and Davis said simply that they would not object to moving such monuments to museums.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to a controversial shrine to war dead on Tuesday, the anniversary of Japan's World War Two surrender, but did not visit in person in an apparent effort to avoid increasing regional tensions.

"After the war, our country has consistently taken steps as a country that abhors war and treasures peace, and has made efforts to promote the peace and prosperity of the world," Abe said at a national ceremony to honor war dead on Tuesday. "We intend to keep this immovable policy firmly, throughout the ages, while facing history with humility."

President Donald Trump’s slow response to the deadly clash in Charlottesville, Virginia sparked by a white nationalist rally was shocking to political observers, experts on extremism and even members of his own party, but nobody could call it surprising.

Related: Trump Condemns Hate Groups, Calls Racism ‘Evil’ Days After Charlottesville Violence. While Greenblatt said Trump’s remarks condemning racism on Monday were positive, he added that Trump should have to “step above the lowest possible bar” and pair his words with action.

The move by Kenneth Frazier, one of corporate America’s leading African American executives, came after President Trump was criticized for not explicitly condemning white supremacists after violent clashes with counter-protestors turned deadly in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday.

Many on Twitter noted that Trump responded more quickly and specifically to Frazier’s resignation than he did to the violence in Charlottesville.

For decades, the ACLU has defended the speech rights of far-right groups like neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan on the principle that if those groups’ rights are not upheld, the government will try to restrict the free-speech rights of other groups as well.

6:55 p.m.: The article was updated to include the ACLU’s decision not to represent white supremacist groups that want to demonstrate with guns.

Kim Jong-un appeared on Tuesday to signal a pause in the escalating war of words with Donald Trump, saying he was prepared to watch US actions in the region “a little more” before ordering a planned launch of North Korean missiles aimed at the US territory of Guam. But he warned he could still order a missile launch aimed at the seas around Guam if there were further provocations from “foolish Yankees”.

– The driver charged with killing a woman at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville was previously accused of beating his mother and threatening her with a knife, according to police records released Monday.

Fields, 20, is accused of ramming his car into a crowd of counter-protesters on Saturday in Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Fields, described by a former high school teacher as an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, was charged with second-degree murder.

Other instances include the neo-Nazis and white supremacists sometimes spotted at Trump campaign events, a white nationalist super PAC making robocalls on Trump's behalf, and a prominent member of an alt-right group expressing his support of Trump.

Though President Donald Trump condemned hate groups today following the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend, for some the remarks were too little, too late.

Islamist terrorism has exploded in Spain in the past two decades as it has around the world: One of Europe's deadliest attacks occurred in Madrid on March 11, 2004, when almost 200 people were killed by terrorists who set off 10 bombs on four commuter trains within four minutes.

More than many other European countries, Spain — where a rental van killed at least 13 people and injured more than 100 others on Thursday — is inured to the devastation of terrorist attacks.

The White House is scrambling to contain the fallout after President Trump blamed "both sides" for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Vice President Mike Pence cut his foreign trip short to return for meetings with Mr. Trump as administration officials worked to control the damage. On Wednesday, the president announced plans to hold one of his campaign-style rallies to shore up support on Tuesday in Arizona.